My first grandfather was on my dad's side. He passed away when my dad was young, fifteen, I'm told. I have often asked my great aunts and my dad what he was like. By all accounts, he was intense, intelligent, compelling, charming, passionate, and taken to drink. I quite like the tales. His gravestone carries a photo which I often recant as resembling a famous actor, Chow Yun Fatt: thick, black hair, black glasses, a full, white Chinese face, dressed smartly in a shirt and dark tie. My dad isn't the type to praise another man too keenly. But from what I suppose to be his reserve about my granddad I figure my granddad must have been a strong character. I wonder if he had Chow's on-screen intensity, his great, almost frightful grin. Yes, my great aunts often say that he was a wonderful man, gregarious, effusive, and perhaps they are disposed to fondness, to nostalgia. They said he was at Raffles, survived a bombing that nailed his entire classroom, worked as an editor at the Straits Times, died when his liver gave out. My dad's brother, my uncle, says that intelligence sometimes skips a generation. I hope he doesn't mean I'm smart. But the stories end there. I have no one else to tell me about him. In a way it's difficult to treat seriously a person you only hear about. But I think often about what a grandfather of mine would think of me, whether he would be proud.
My second grandfather stayed with us when we were young. We had a mansionette, if that's what they're called, a little two storey flat in Hougang. We slept upstairs, parents and children two to a room each, and my step-grandfather downstairs, his grilled window towards the corridor. I think we were on the third floor. I remember he had a tummy, he yawned loud enough to be heard throughout an entire bus, no mean feat to a child. He often went shirtless while sitting at home, and I remember amusing myself by poking and prodding his chest. He drove a van and it made warning beeps at a certain speed. The story most told of him and me is that he once sent me to school and being displeased at sitting in his van instead of my dad's car I stepped out and kicked his van. He drank soda water, which tasted awful, and he watched wrestling, which was fucking awesome. We weren't allowed to watch but the rest of the time we saw the undertaker on this little ten inch tv, a cathode ray tube thing. I don't know what he was like, except that he spoke less than I remember, and made more grandfatherly sounds in replacement. When he passed away my sister said that he told her which of his big rings on his hands were real and which were not. They were ugly, garish things. He passed away and I don't remember much more than that, other than wearing socks and walking down the road at his funeral. I remember my dad sitting at a table, tired. Strange, I don't remember it as a sad occasion. Maybe it had some air of inevitability toward it. I haven't recollected my thoughts about him until now, and that makes twenty plus years. When my mum came back recently we went to a temple on a really hot day, where a little ensconced portrait of his was kept with many others, in a side hall where recorded prayers were played on repeat. I remember my mum crying, saying that she had returned. I don't remember what he looks like from the photo. I guess that means his memory is well treated.
My third grandfather lived in a one room flat in Chinatown. My parents referred to him as the Chinatown Gong Gong (not to be mistaken with the Hougang Gong Gong). We visited him three times or so, not more, as far as we were children. I once bought a cup for him, when I was eighteen or so, and I remember feeling extremely put out that he didn't seem too enamoured to receive my present. My mum who was there chided him, a little roughly, that he hadn't seemed too appreciative. We rarely visited him; when we did, it was usually at night, and we usually didn't stay too long. Nothing much was said, except my mum who spoke to him in Hokkien, a dialect I could not fairly grasp until more recently. Over the past year or so I visited him three times. He seemed worn out, a little threadbare. We had dinner, we had hor fun downstairs. He spoke in a chesty, reticent, and simple manner. I read him his letters, explained the damned CHAS scheme to him in Hokkien. I brought him a bottle of Yomeishu, and he chided me for it, embarrassed to receive a gift. The second time I went to visit him I knocked on the door for a really long time. I wondered if he was there, or however else it might be. After a while the door opened. He was hard of hearing, and he was about ready to turn in for the night. He had a radio and a television, a lot of video CDs which he showed me, and a lot of photos of him and his friends and family, travelling in various parts of China. They were exactly what they were, photos of people, old photos. He had a window which faced the back part of Havelock Road, towards the Ministry of Manpower. It was quite a good view from the flat, to be honest, and the wind came through, wu hong or hong beng dua, as was polite to say. He worked in a hospital as a janitor for forty something years, and my mum said that he used to prepare the hot powdered milk for her. He divorced my grandmother, I am told because she gambled too much, and she stayed in the flat that they bought. He still wore the wedding band on his left ring finger. He was hard of hearing but he understood just fine. He had vision problems, but in his resigned way he would say that it was sometimes worse, and sometimes not so bad. All this in Hokkien. After a few visits I stopped. When my mum asked if I still visited him I said that I didn't feel like visiting him, I don't feel that I should be visiting him. It's difficult to explain things to my mum. I didn't want to sit with him, grandson to grandfather, and feel like a stranger, given the distance our lives had taken. I didn't want to sit there and feel pity for him. It was a difficult emotion for me to deal with. There was little I could have done. He was happy to have someone to visit him. I don't know if I felt that I did so as his grandson. That was the difficult part. Today, I was about to go home when I thought of him. I thought, hey, I should ask him to stay with me in the flat I'm buying, at Bedok. That will fix everything, that's obviously the right thing to do here, to ask him to stay with me. At his door, the gate was broken apart, the door handle chained to the nearest part of the gate. Partial boot marks marred the exposed tiles at the front of the door. It was all there, and clear. I knocked and shouted to him, hoping he was in there, and he wasn't. The police said they had taken him that day. It seemed a matter of fact, a coincidence. Years ago, I stood in a burned out room when an enormous fire had ravaged my grandmother's flat. It was blackened, completely destroyed, what a war zone might have seemed. The scene at my Gong Gong's door was just the same, it was completely evident. I offered, on perhaps my second or third visit, to take him to a church. Where there would be other lao lang. He declined. I think in my mind I was, alright, maybe next time. May God have mercy on his soul. God is a merciful God. What does that mean? That means that God cares. I hope that's enough.
Chinatown Gong Gong, Chin Swee Road Gong Gong. Farewell, old man.
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Friday, October 23, 2015
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
CXC - my fathers before me
One hundred and ninety in roman numerals is written as CXC. Isn't that beautiful? I mean I'm no number fanatic myself but I guess the simplicity and the symmetry of that has just the right amount of elegance, of élan. In a way it also hints at the syntax of Latin (of Latium, the province of the city of Rome), which works, basically, in a subject-object-adjective way, so that the sentence has to be grasped front to end before the complete meaning becomes clear. But I guess this simply devolves from the inherent limitations of the Roman numeral system, i.e. in comparison with the decimal Hindu-Arabic system. But consider "CXC": in a way the beauty of it is essentially human, although numbers perhaps have in some sense a priori existence, or even self-evidence; to be beautiful in spite of and also on account of its limitations.
I thought recently about the three written works I would most like to take along with me to a desert island (assuming that all other conditions are reasonable). There is no particular order of merit, but if pressed I would like most to take these in order.
1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's collected works.
2. Jorge Luis Borges' collected works.
3. Friedrich Nietzsche's collected works.
If these may seem perhaps too ungainly to clutch desperately to one's bosom when threatened with desert island maroonment, the following are the specific works I shall prefer:
1. Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.
2. Borges' Collected Fictions (only 576 pages, after all).
3. Plato's The Republic (alas, my dear Friedrich, alas.)
This is the extent of my great love for these works: that I do not consider my adult life to have begun until after having read these. And perhaps an item on this list may yet have to make way for one or another of Rowan Williams' works.
A few words on these writers might be given here, although one might hope to be forgiven for fumbling about in trying to quite describe what is wonderful about these works. In a way this feels a little like those horrible little quotes that are published quite crudely on the back of some immodest books.
Marquez is for me the master of exploring and portraying the singular romantic, heroic, pseudo-epic visions, fixations or delusions a person might have, and his writing embraces the thesis, the leitmotif that every person must in the end admit and relinquish himself to the particular, solitary and necessarily individualistic core of the eccentricity, and hence meaning, of his own existence. And this is not a comedic obsession, it is a deadly serious Quixotic enterprise.
Borges is perhaps more fantastic: his stories are of men as effigies, infinite libraries, an imprisoned beast visited by God. There is a touch more of the mystical, of the unending search for meaning in the enigmatic and the abstruse, of the riddle of existence. And in his stories the characters transcend that dissonance between reality and the veiled, the unfathomable; they seem to have come from that other side, speak that other language, they search for the return to that other life. There is hidden in his stories a kernel of that understanding, of reality as an illusion, a dream, a projection.
Plato, and his master Socrates, are perhaps the founding figures in philosophy, in the search for meaning through reason, logical analogy, and an unrelenting dedication to the application of the mind. We must through these works remember that everything that we see, that we use and that we believe must not be closed to probing, to questioning, and if need be, to refutation. And we must in that search not forget as well to be generous, for we, as the masters before us, must seek to search, learn and be brought together to wisdom. What is more, we must, as these masters, learn to live frugally, and well, to be virtuous, moderate and respectable.
I am exceedingly glad to more recently have found my way into the works of Williams. I think his foremost quality is in his sensitivity. His intellect is perhaps unquestioned, but I think his organisation and the phrasing of his thoughts to be so delicate as to be quite enthralling. It is also said in some quarters that his eyebrows are thought to be the finest by some measure, a comment I find both preposterous and strangely quite endearing for the man. What a wonderful man! To quote from John Wesley on fellowship, Wittgenstein on language, Marilynne Robinson on prodigality in literature, Augustine on ... heaven knows what, goodness, I think Williams' work is finally God's answer to me.
I seem to have left out Nietzsche. But my courage has deserted me: I cannot bear to describe him. I am certain that I will never understand the greater part of his writing, Never. He is too deep. His language is certainly marvelous as well; I have quoted in a previous post a passage of his in which he laments that his thoughts, whereas at conception seem to be quite wonderful, when written, have lost much of their vivacity, like a bird trapped in one's hand. But I cannot quite say, with conviction, if at all, that I will ever read Zarathustra with any firm notion of what Nietzsche was driving at. Beyond Good and Evil was slightly more comprehensible. But I have listed Nietzsche's works as something I think I would profitably spend the rest of my days mulling over in solitude, and I quite stand by that.
I thought recently about the three written works I would most like to take along with me to a desert island (assuming that all other conditions are reasonable). There is no particular order of merit, but if pressed I would like most to take these in order.
1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's collected works.
2. Jorge Luis Borges' collected works.
3. Friedrich Nietzsche's collected works.
If these may seem perhaps too ungainly to clutch desperately to one's bosom when threatened with desert island maroonment, the following are the specific works I shall prefer:
1. Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.
2. Borges' Collected Fictions (only 576 pages, after all).
3. Plato's The Republic (alas, my dear Friedrich, alas.)
This is the extent of my great love for these works: that I do not consider my adult life to have begun until after having read these. And perhaps an item on this list may yet have to make way for one or another of Rowan Williams' works.
A few words on these writers might be given here, although one might hope to be forgiven for fumbling about in trying to quite describe what is wonderful about these works. In a way this feels a little like those horrible little quotes that are published quite crudely on the back of some immodest books.
Marquez is for me the master of exploring and portraying the singular romantic, heroic, pseudo-epic visions, fixations or delusions a person might have, and his writing embraces the thesis, the leitmotif that every person must in the end admit and relinquish himself to the particular, solitary and necessarily individualistic core of the eccentricity, and hence meaning, of his own existence. And this is not a comedic obsession, it is a deadly serious Quixotic enterprise.
Borges is perhaps more fantastic: his stories are of men as effigies, infinite libraries, an imprisoned beast visited by God. There is a touch more of the mystical, of the unending search for meaning in the enigmatic and the abstruse, of the riddle of existence. And in his stories the characters transcend that dissonance between reality and the veiled, the unfathomable; they seem to have come from that other side, speak that other language, they search for the return to that other life. There is hidden in his stories a kernel of that understanding, of reality as an illusion, a dream, a projection.
Plato, and his master Socrates, are perhaps the founding figures in philosophy, in the search for meaning through reason, logical analogy, and an unrelenting dedication to the application of the mind. We must through these works remember that everything that we see, that we use and that we believe must not be closed to probing, to questioning, and if need be, to refutation. And we must in that search not forget as well to be generous, for we, as the masters before us, must seek to search, learn and be brought together to wisdom. What is more, we must, as these masters, learn to live frugally, and well, to be virtuous, moderate and respectable.
I am exceedingly glad to more recently have found my way into the works of Williams. I think his foremost quality is in his sensitivity. His intellect is perhaps unquestioned, but I think his organisation and the phrasing of his thoughts to be so delicate as to be quite enthralling. It is also said in some quarters that his eyebrows are thought to be the finest by some measure, a comment I find both preposterous and strangely quite endearing for the man. What a wonderful man! To quote from John Wesley on fellowship, Wittgenstein on language, Marilynne Robinson on prodigality in literature, Augustine on ... heaven knows what, goodness, I think Williams' work is finally God's answer to me.
I seem to have left out Nietzsche. But my courage has deserted me: I cannot bear to describe him. I am certain that I will never understand the greater part of his writing, Never. He is too deep. His language is certainly marvelous as well; I have quoted in a previous post a passage of his in which he laments that his thoughts, whereas at conception seem to be quite wonderful, when written, have lost much of their vivacity, like a bird trapped in one's hand. But I cannot quite say, with conviction, if at all, that I will ever read Zarathustra with any firm notion of what Nietzsche was driving at. Beyond Good and Evil was slightly more comprehensible. But I have listed Nietzsche's works as something I think I would profitably spend the rest of my days mulling over in solitude, and I quite stand by that.
Monday, September 14, 2015
CLXXXIX - (soft) voices
I often have conversations in my mind.
In a way they occur organically. Like the pulses of a crystal following some stochastic irrythmic, glowing rays expelled in idiosyncracy, interfering in secret patterns. A quanta of image, sound, smell, or touch funnels, finds its way mechanically, then chemically, then who knows? into the mind, bing! a memory, a tape rewinds and then plays back (or perhaps is recorded, or recorded over?). In some sense the moment pauses, the world stops writhing, suspends mid-breath (or perhaps it carries on, muted, dull, uninteresting).
And a little conversation transfolds. No magic, just two, three characters in a space, talking. I may be there, usually, perhaps because I would like to be there. Let us be honest. These conversations are strong dreams, strong in the sense that I would like very much for them to be real, dreams in the sense that they are not. And one more thing separates these from dreams, dreams over which one has no apparent control: there is no, or rather I endeavour seriously not to be afraid. In that way I temper myself against fear, paralysis, doubt, trepidation; by pre-enactment, or perhaps, post-enactment: I would like very much to speak on these things, to these people, to be heard. And then to hear, to be understood, grasped, embraced. To be loved.
It is thus almost always solipsistic in a weak sense, i.e. like a small, imagined play, like a dream that is not horrible, not volatile, not capricious as a swirling wind. So to describe it more accurately I am perhaps always there - I do not, I think, think seriously about conversations happening without me, because, perhaps, I almost never care what others may say when I am absent. That is one of my maxims, or at least it appears here in its converse form; its original form being never to speak (at least, poorly) of one who is not present.
This internal conversation, dialogue, in that sense I practise talking, thinking, formulating, delivery, but not listening. And listening is boring, of course, in large part due to the many who speak; but true listening requires skill and imagination. The trick in these internal conversations is thus to imagine what someone says in reply, or how someone might think, might listen. This of course requires faith, my faith in the general sympathy of the created listener; in a way, like prayer: God is our created listener in the merely formal sense that unless we speak (or at least think our concepts to God) we cannot have a listener. Or perhaps more, as Voltaire thought: "si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer" (if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him). But as it is reassuring to assume (or trust) that God is sympathetic, it is reassuring to assign some measure of sympathy to a conversa-persona.
But the thing, I think, the key thing about an internal conversation is not to be dictatorial (ironic as it may seem, after all, no one else exists to disagree), but rather, to be self-aware, to truly grasp that one's listener, one's conversa-personas, are to be assigned intelligence, rationality, truly-formed human conceptions, and that they cannot be pounded into submission (or lied to, or deceived, or misled, or chagrined), rather they must be persuaded, Socrato-Plato style. Yes, one must believe that no one, to whom everything is properly shown, will choose wrongly. And thus one should strive always to guide and be guided by a sense of pedagogical benevolence, patrimony, an aristocratic (aristo - of the best) noblesse oblige (nobility obliges). And it should not surprise anyone that this approach is as germane to children as it is (or should be) for adults. In one sense children are far superior: it is that children point out when the emperor is naked.
I think this is key. An internal conversation is probably one of the strongest tools one may employ in reflection. On the one hand, to strive always to be heard, to speak louder, even loudest, is but a virtue of the most unabashed, and this should never by itself be a sufficient barometer as to the validity of one's argument. One should not by internal conversation prove to himself that he deserves, having thus had the benefit of rehearsals, always to be heard (or herself, she). Rather, internal conversation should remind you, me, one, that our thoughts and our voices must be reasoned, careful, accurate, and sympathetic, bearing in mind the vast ignorance(s) we necessarily toil under.
And of course it is of sometime importance that one should not be overcome by nostalgia, or excessive sentiment ... in their futility. I remind myself, sometimes, yes, not to think, to dream, not to get carried away ... and not to hope wistfully.
In a way they occur organically. Like the pulses of a crystal following some stochastic irrythmic, glowing rays expelled in idiosyncracy, interfering in secret patterns. A quanta of image, sound, smell, or touch funnels, finds its way mechanically, then chemically, then who knows? into the mind, bing! a memory, a tape rewinds and then plays back (or perhaps is recorded, or recorded over?). In some sense the moment pauses, the world stops writhing, suspends mid-breath (or perhaps it carries on, muted, dull, uninteresting).
And a little conversation transfolds. No magic, just two, three characters in a space, talking. I may be there, usually, perhaps because I would like to be there. Let us be honest. These conversations are strong dreams, strong in the sense that I would like very much for them to be real, dreams in the sense that they are not. And one more thing separates these from dreams, dreams over which one has no apparent control: there is no, or rather I endeavour seriously not to be afraid. In that way I temper myself against fear, paralysis, doubt, trepidation; by pre-enactment, or perhaps, post-enactment: I would like very much to speak on these things, to these people, to be heard. And then to hear, to be understood, grasped, embraced. To be loved.
It is thus almost always solipsistic in a weak sense, i.e. like a small, imagined play, like a dream that is not horrible, not volatile, not capricious as a swirling wind. So to describe it more accurately I am perhaps always there - I do not, I think, think seriously about conversations happening without me, because, perhaps, I almost never care what others may say when I am absent. That is one of my maxims, or at least it appears here in its converse form; its original form being never to speak (at least, poorly) of one who is not present.
This internal conversation, dialogue, in that sense I practise talking, thinking, formulating, delivery, but not listening. And listening is boring, of course, in large part due to the many who speak; but true listening requires skill and imagination. The trick in these internal conversations is thus to imagine what someone says in reply, or how someone might think, might listen. This of course requires faith, my faith in the general sympathy of the created listener; in a way, like prayer: God is our created listener in the merely formal sense that unless we speak (or at least think our concepts to God) we cannot have a listener. Or perhaps more, as Voltaire thought: "si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer" (if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him). But as it is reassuring to assume (or trust) that God is sympathetic, it is reassuring to assign some measure of sympathy to a conversa-persona.
But the thing, I think, the key thing about an internal conversation is not to be dictatorial (ironic as it may seem, after all, no one else exists to disagree), but rather, to be self-aware, to truly grasp that one's listener, one's conversa-personas, are to be assigned intelligence, rationality, truly-formed human conceptions, and that they cannot be pounded into submission (or lied to, or deceived, or misled, or chagrined), rather they must be persuaded, Socrato-Plato style. Yes, one must believe that no one, to whom everything is properly shown, will choose wrongly. And thus one should strive always to guide and be guided by a sense of pedagogical benevolence, patrimony, an aristocratic (aristo - of the best) noblesse oblige (nobility obliges). And it should not surprise anyone that this approach is as germane to children as it is (or should be) for adults. In one sense children are far superior: it is that children point out when the emperor is naked.
I think this is key. An internal conversation is probably one of the strongest tools one may employ in reflection. On the one hand, to strive always to be heard, to speak louder, even loudest, is but a virtue of the most unabashed, and this should never by itself be a sufficient barometer as to the validity of one's argument. One should not by internal conversation prove to himself that he deserves, having thus had the benefit of rehearsals, always to be heard (or herself, she). Rather, internal conversation should remind you, me, one, that our thoughts and our voices must be reasoned, careful, accurate, and sympathetic, bearing in mind the vast ignorance(s) we necessarily toil under.
And of course it is of sometime importance that one should not be overcome by nostalgia, or excessive sentiment ... in their futility. I remind myself, sometimes, yes, not to think, to dream, not to get carried away ... and not to hope wistfully.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
CLXXXVIII - c'est que j'ai vécu
" ... Le doge a ses chagrins, les gondoliers ont les leurs. Il est vrai qu'à tout prendre le sort d'un gondolier est préférable à celui d'un doge; mais je crois la différence si médiocre, que cela ne vaut pas la peine d'être examiné."
" ... The Doge has his troubles, the gondoliers have theirs. It is true that, all things considered, the life of a gondolier is preferable to that of a Doge; but I believe the[Pg 132] difference to be so trifling that it is not worth the trouble of examining."
Voltaire, Candide (1759)
" ... The Doge has his troubles, the gondoliers have theirs. It is true that, all things considered, the life of a gondolier is preferable to that of a Doge; but I believe the[Pg 132] difference to be so trifling that it is not worth the trouble of examining."
Voltaire, Candide (1759)
Friday, September 4, 2015
CLXXXVII - buena música
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ryXdDjn1X8
There is for me something deeply mysterious, deeply nostalgic and wonderful in the flamboyant music of the Gipsy Kings. With my utter incomprehension of the Spanish language (and perhaps I should here greatly despair, given as I am a terrible lover of Latin American literature), it forms in me a profound longing, an almost ethereal yearning to be something, to be somewhere.
I remember hearing it on the taxi radio on the way to court once. It reminded me that life was irrefutably beautiful. I left the firm soon after that. I would like to think that there is perhaps some correlation there.
The Gipsy Kings are a favourite of my dad. That alone makes me think well of him, of our past family life.
Isn't that wonderful ... Isn't that wonderful music.
There is for me something deeply mysterious, deeply nostalgic and wonderful in the flamboyant music of the Gipsy Kings. With my utter incomprehension of the Spanish language (and perhaps I should here greatly despair, given as I am a terrible lover of Latin American literature), it forms in me a profound longing, an almost ethereal yearning to be something, to be somewhere.
I remember hearing it on the taxi radio on the way to court once. It reminded me that life was irrefutably beautiful. I left the firm soon after that. I would like to think that there is perhaps some correlation there.
The Gipsy Kings are a favourite of my dad. That alone makes me think well of him, of our past family life.
Isn't that wonderful ... Isn't that wonderful music.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
CLXXXVI - in sepia
You know, when I watch old people, when I sit down with them, ease into a sort of quiet space, calm, homely, unadorned, I like to think of what they were like thirty, forty, sixty years ago. You find out that most people, when they get old, don't have pretension in them, they don't have that nervous self awareness, the sort of anxiety about their clothes and hair and how they carry their physical bodies. I mean yes they are very proper and decently dressed, but beyond that it's all just trappings, you get the sense. Old people have this calm, maybe which comes partly out of resignation, a sense that time, having passed them by, is thereby no longer urgent. But I would like to hope that that sort of resignation is not always in them a negative one.
And so I like to imagine what they must have been like, in their twenties, their thirties. Young, full of vigor, chasing the things we now chase. With time perhaps their handsomeness has faded, but I like to think of them returned with youthful faces, supple limbs, perhaps the impatience of their past lives. What they must have been like in the glorious old days, for I take for granted that everyone must have had something they were once proud of. It's not so hard to imagine, is it? That once upon a time this old lady might have been young, with I suppose some coquetry in her ... Once upon a time this old man wore a sharp suit and shiny black shoes. Once upon a time these people seated relaxedly at this table were young, chatty, happily active, listened to deng li jun, went to the opera together, worked as clerks and secretaries, nurses and accountants, lived, had lovers, married girls, boys, bought houses ... did all the things we hope to do, before growing old.
Old people aren't old man. We're the ones that are ... fools.
And so I like to imagine what they must have been like, in their twenties, their thirties. Young, full of vigor, chasing the things we now chase. With time perhaps their handsomeness has faded, but I like to think of them returned with youthful faces, supple limbs, perhaps the impatience of their past lives. What they must have been like in the glorious old days, for I take for granted that everyone must have had something they were once proud of. It's not so hard to imagine, is it? That once upon a time this old lady might have been young, with I suppose some coquetry in her ... Once upon a time this old man wore a sharp suit and shiny black shoes. Once upon a time these people seated relaxedly at this table were young, chatty, happily active, listened to deng li jun, went to the opera together, worked as clerks and secretaries, nurses and accountants, lived, had lovers, married girls, boys, bought houses ... did all the things we hope to do, before growing old.
Old people aren't old man. We're the ones that are ... fools.
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